From: no@spamthank.s   
      
   Brad Templeton wrote:   
   > In article <4b00c92f$0$2477$db0fefd9@news.zen.co.uk>,   
   > Ian B  wrote:   
   >>>> jack   wrote:   
   >>>> and slavery is still going   
   >>>> strong for more people than ever in history.   
   >>   
   >> Really? You quite sure about that?   
   >>   
   >>   
   >> Ian   
   >>   
   >>   
   >   
   > Just a number that was cited on an NPR show I heard recently, which   
   > was not   
   > measuring the number of slaves today but the amount of international   
   > trafficking   
   > of slaves, which is less than the number that stay in one country.   
   > The   
   > number of slaves shipped today was considerably greater than the   
   > number shipped   
   > at the height of the slave trade in the 18-19th centuries.   The   
   > world population   
   > is of course even larger.   
   >   
   > Wikipedia cites a U.S. govt. report that 600,000 to 800,000 human   
   > beings are trafficked each year over international borders today.   
   > The article also cites numbers of 600K slaves in Mauritania, 800K in   
   > Nigeriam 109K in Ivoriy Coast, 800K in forced labour in Burma.   
   > The U.S. had about 4M slaves at the peak.  About 12M slaves were   
   > taken from Africa during the 15th-19th century period, though there   
   > are many variants on this number.   
   >   
   > So while the numbers traded per year are higher, it could be the   
   > periods of slavery   
   > are shorter (slaves today are not as valuable and live a shorter   
   > life) and as such   
   > the total number of slaves today, while in the millions, is less than   
   > the 10 to 15   
   > million at the peak in the 19th century.   
   >   
   > Either way it's not good.   
      
   As I said in another answer, there is a huge problem here with definitions.   
   "Trafficking" is beign deliberately conflated with the concept "slavery" in   
   the public mind. Then a figure is declared by some authoritative-sounding   
   agency, and lodged in the public and political consciousness. The activist   
   community are past masters at this now; same method as the anti-smokign   
   campaigners. You start with a real effect and problem, then people start   
   just inflating the statistics to further their campaign and nobody   
   challenges them. It seems to happen in every activist cause; even the AIDS   
   statistics from Africa we now know were hugely overstated. That doesn't mean   
   there is no problem of course; in many African nations AIDS is an enormous,   
   real, public health problem. But some of the figures that have been stated   
   and accepted by teh political class have been insane.   
      
   The "traficking" figures are largely made up of illegal migrants. If   
   somebody pays a middle man to smuggle them into another country, they get   
   added to the "trafficking" figures then somebody else conflates that with   
   slavery. The part I have most knowledge of because I've taken an interest   
   (for political reasons) is the sex slavery narrative, so that's why I   
   mention it more. Broadly speaking, many women in the poorer parts of the   
   world are moving across borders to (knowingly) work as prostitutes in   
   wealthier nations where they can earn more money. They are *all* being   
   declared as "slaves". It's nonsense.   
      
   Slavery is a terrible thing, but it has a clear definition. Pretending other   
   things that are not it, are "sort of like it" so therefore are it degrades   
   the language, degrades public undestanding and is used to push the public   
   discourse in particular directions that activists at a high political level   
   seek to push it in. Instead of a rational discussion about making migration   
   policies fair and decent to vulnerable, poor human beings, you end up with a   
   screaming moral panic about "slavery" descended directly from the White   
   Slavery Panic. In terms of the sex trade, it is simply a consequence of the   
   fact that social activism in the anglospheric west descended not, as "the   
   Right" think, from communism (that is, they think modern social statism,   
   known as liberalism in the USA, is a marxist trojan horse- it isn't) but   
   from protestant activism and, as such, they just completely hate whores and   
   will do anything to rid the world of whoredom, including flat out lying,   
   which is what they do via statistics.   
      
   Sorry to rant, but it gets my goat, it really does. I've gradually realised   
   over the years that the old "lies, damned lies and statistics" really is   
   true. We are awash in a sea of propaganda, and it seems virtually everything   
   one takes at face value is simply a distortion. Everyone is grinding their   
   axes down to a nub and any attempt at some form of objectivity is all but   
   nonexistent.   
      
      
   Ian   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)